Movie Review - The Hidden

I first saw The Hidden when it came out in theaters in 1987, and it left an impression sufficient to recommend it to some friends and rent the video when it became available. I watched it last night for the first time in probably 15 years, and I’ll admit that it stands the test of time as an above-average Sci-Fi Thriller.

Kyle McLaughlan plays FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher who’s teamed up with local cop, Tom Beck, played by Michael Nouri, to hunt down an interstellar killer. The slug-like parasitic alien murderer enters its human hosts through the mouth, and then takes over their bodies until they are so damaged that the alien must leave to find another host. Each host is controlled by the alien who has a penchant for speed metal, fast cars, and sex. McLaughlan and Nouri pursue the creature as it oozes from person to person waiting to catch it in the open between hosts which is the only time it can be killed.

The ‘parasitic alien taking over the human’ theme is so well worn that it almost deserves its own genre. Ever since 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers we’ve watched our fellow humans become unwilling hosts to alien guests of all shapes and sizes. The Hidden doesn’t attempt to retool this formula or even refresh it, but it does represent it respectfully. It even adds some decent car chases including one at the beginning where you get to see a Ferrari fly through a window pane before being torn to shreds by the LAPD (worth the price of the DVD rental, alone).

That being said, for movies sharing this theme, The Hidden is not as good as, the suspenseful 1998 Denzel Washington movie, Fallen, where Denzel must chase, you guessed it, an unseen entity moving from one human to another. It’s also not as chilling as John Carpenter ’s The Thing, a 1982 remake of the 1951 Sci-Fi classic The Thing From Another World. Still, The Hidden holds its own as both a Sci-Fi Thriller and an action flick, and for fans of the ‘parasitic alien’ theme, it certainly will not disappoint.